The invention relates to a fire protection device for domestic appliances.
Domestic appliances, which have several power consumers, such as for example motors, heaters etc., are usually not subjected to individual checks on their electrical safety. In order to avoid damage to the domestic appliances, as a result of excess current, domestic appliances generally have safety devices, which have for example a safety button made of porcelain or ceramic, which glows when a specific current strength is reached and thus protects the domestic appliance from further damage, in particular smouldering fires or the like.
Because ignitable and inflammable materials are used in the manufacture of electrical appliances for the household, there may be a heightened risk that these materials catch fire in the event of a short circuit or when electric wires wear through. DE 38 09 754 A1 discloses a device with a container for a fire retardant substance for extinguishing such fires, which container opens automatically in the presence of a flame or when the ambient temperature rises above a limit parameter, for the purpose of pouring the fire retardant substance indirectly or directly onto the parts of the appliance endangered by fire or which are to be protected therefrom. In this case an arrangement can be made where the containers, preferably several of them, in each case have cells containing fire retardant substance and which effectively have boreholes in the floor region, which are occluded by a protective film or a membranous skin, for example, which bursts at a preset temperature to open up the boreholes and in the process let the fire retardant substance escape.
It has proven advantageous with this device that the objects located in the vicinity of the electrical appliance are protected from the spread of the fire, but the electrical domestic appliance is completely destroyed or at least is so badly damaged that extensive repairs are required. Also, compared to the destruction of several domestic appliances, in the kitchen for example, when the loss of a single domestic appliance proves to be comparatively low, it is all the same desirable to protect this electrical appliance from total damage, as far as possible. But because the device disclosed in DE 38 09 754 A1 comes into play only when the electrics are already partially destroyed, substantial damage has already occurred in this appliance.